British Royal Serves Times In Las Vegas Jail: Duke Of Manchester Arrested For Burglary And Filing False Police Report

Jail bars at an adjustment center. The 13th Duke of Manchester was arrested in Las Vegas for burglary and for falsifying a police report. Photo: REUTERS/Stephen Lam

An Australian-born member of the British royal family was being held in a Las Vegas prison after he was charged with possible burglary and for filing a false police report.

Identified as the 13th Duke of Manchester, Alexander Montagu-Manchester, 53, appeared before a court Tuesday following an arrest made in July for burglary. He was released on bail that month, but he will now remain in jail at least until the next month due to pending charges brought against him of burglary charges, according to Yahoo News.

“I didn’t break into someone’s house,” Montagu-Manchester said of the burglary charge to the Associated Press. He was not asked in court to enter a plea to the charge.

Montagu-Manchester stated that he holds both British and Australian citizenship but has lived in the U.S. since the mid-60s, the AP reported. His noble title dates back 950 years.

The court hearing centered on a burglary Montagu-Manchester allegedly committed on July 6 at around 2:30 a.m. A woman called police when she woke up to discover a shirtless and shoeless man (presumably Montagu-Manchester) entering her bedroom. Police were told that he dropped the box and fled when he noticed that the woman was on the phone with police. Montagu-Manchester was arrested, following the call, at another home.

In addition to the burglary charge, Montagu-Manchester might also face a felony charge following a fabricated police report. Montagu-Manchester stated that he believed police took his comment that his wife, Laura Montagu, “might have” attacked him to mean that he blamed her for a wound on his thumb. Indeed, Montagu-Manchester does have a gash on his thumb from moving into a new apartment days earlier, according to reports. Montagu-Manchester was arrested for the false report on Aug. 12.

“He’s been saying a lot of things,” Laura Montagu stated in a separate interview with the AP. She said her husband injured his thumb with a box cutter, stating, “He needs help. Something’s going on and people can see it.”

He denied the charges brought against him and blames an accident, which occurred on June 8, for injury. Montagu-Manchester claimed he was “run over” by a vehicle in an "intentional" attack and that he suffered a brain injury from the event. A police department spokeswoman, Officer Laura Meltzer, did confirm that the incident was reported in June and that it was still being investigated, according to ABC News.

Montagu-Manchester is set to appear in court for a hearing on Sept. 26. He could face up to 14 years in Nevada state prison if found guilty of two felony charges.

A year and a half after the Panama Papers leak hit headlines across the globe, the country's finance minister sat down with IBT to discuss what his department has been doing since then to clean up Panama's reputation on the world stage and keep the use of secretive tax havens in check.

Tuesday in San Francisco at Structure Security 2017, Google's lead Android security engineer Adrian Ludwig talked about the evolution of Android security and new steps the company is taking to make Android more secure.